


Never Spoken

by Kivrin



Series: Aftermath [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, M/M, POV First Person, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-16
Updated: 2009-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-04 11:46:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kivrin/pseuds/Kivrin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After "Band Candy", someone needs to keep an eye on the grownups while they come down from the chocolate high.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Spoken

**Author's Note:**

> for [](http://velvetandlace.livejournal.com/profile)[**velvetandlace**](http://velvetandlace.livejournal.com/)'s request in the 2005 [Giles ficathon](http://www.livejournal.com/community/giles_ficathon/393.html). She asked for Xander and young!Giles interacting during "Band Candy," with no gratuitous use of the name 'Ripper' and nothing that totally contradicts S3 canon.
> 
> Thanks to [](http://debg.livejournal.com/profile)[**debg**](http://debg.livejournal.com/) for good musical suggestions, and [](http://bethynyc.livejournal.com/profile)[**bethynyc**](http://bethynyc.livejournal.com/) for beyond-last-minute beta help.

I said I'd take care of him, because I'm used to it after the summer, right? I know where things are in the dresser and the kitchen, and how to make tea so he'll drink it and not just say "thank you" and hold the cup until you leave. I know how to be quiet so he won't tell me to go home and get some sleep. I know exactly how long - seven seconds - I can leave my hand on his shoulder before he stiffens up and starts talking about cross-referencing.

So I told Buffy I'd take care of him, and Cordy drove us back to his place, driving too fast and looking over her shoulder at where he was sitting on a stack of extra issues of _Razorback Reader_, and telling him not to move because the seats are leather and she doesn't want sewer water in the car, and dropped us off and drove away.

He put one foot up on the curb and took the box of cigarettes out of his sleeve, and went through it, squeezing each one and then dropping it on the ground when it made a waterlogged _squish_ noise. Then he dropped the box, too, and stepped on it, and looked at me. "Got any fags?" His voice sounded rough and smoky and his eyes were dark and looked right at me, which he _never_ does, not for more than a second. He talks to the floor between our feet or the wall to the right of my head or he blinks a lot and then cleans his glasses.

"Nah, sorry." I looked away fast and started up the steps.

He followed me, squelching and shuffling in his wet jeans, drumming on the banister and singing under his breath. "Still early," he said, hanging back in the courtyard while I unlocked his door with Buffy's key. "Let's go out. Have a bit of fun."

"You're all wet." Right away I wished I hadn't said it, because that made me think about it, and look at him again to see how wet he still was, which was very. There was some glistening. I fiddled with the keys.

"Could get new kit." He hopped up on the edge of the fountain and bounced on his toes, which added rippling to the glistening and made me get really interested in the keys. Really, really interested. Because my brain was not - hear that, brain? - was _not_ going to, in any way, preserve that image to throw back at me some morning in the shower. Not. At. All.

"Or we could go in and you could get changed." I reached in to turn on the light. "Save the money."

"Wasn't going to _buy_ it, tosser." He jumped down. "And there's fuck-all to wear in there, unless I want to host a fancy-dress party as C.S. fucking Lewis." He bounced on his toes again, watching me too hard, then made a fed-up noise and brushed past through the doorway.

I tried really hard not to think about how he didn't smell like sewer, and locked the door behind us. "Okay! I'll, uh, put the kettle on, and, uh, you can get changed!"

"Christ, you're like my Aunt Harriet when the vicar comes to tea, just without the shortcake and pin curls." But he did stalk up the stairs and I heard him thumping and grumbling while the dresser drawers squeaked in and out.

"Just like the summer," I muttered, while I measured the tea into the strainer. "Just without the gauze and pills and the dreams we'll never, ever talk about. Plus a hand-packed gallon of awkward with chunks of weird British slang."

"Didn't used to talk to yourself," he said.

I jumped. He was in the doorway, leaning against the wall by the furnace, wearing a dry t-shirt and plaid flannel sweats. No shoes. When I dragged my eyes back up to his face, I could see that his hair was still standing up in rough wet tangles, like the grass at the edge of the driveway where my dad and Mr. Plotnick next door fight about who should cut it. He grinned, all teeth and hungry eyes. He looked like Larry, before Larry was gay, hanging by the Coke machine looking for someone to slug.

"Um..." I said. "Tea?"

"Nah." He raised one hand. It had a chocolate bar in it. Eyes still fixed on me, he peeled back the wrapper and took a bite.

"Hey!" I protested.

"Hey," he mocked, in a squeak, still chewing

"Knock it off!"

"_You_ knock it off!" he shouted. Then the grin came back.

I gulped. "It's...it's magic."

"Yeah. Got any other great thoughts?"

"If you keep eating that it's gonna keep you..."

"From turning into an old fart who drinks Bovril and wears pinstriped flannelette pajamas?" He tore off half the chocolate bar and chewed with his mouth open. "Thinks he's a rocker because at the end of a hard day's translation he puts on a cardie and listens to Cream? Thank you, may I have another?"

I couldn't contradict him, except maybe about the cardie, but since I wasn't totally sure what that was, I didn't want to try. I looked at the tea stuff instead.

"So, what're we going to do?" He slouched in the doorway, smacking his lips over the chocolate. "Come on! What's it going to be, 'old man'?" He spat the words out in a bad imitation of his usual voice, like me mocking him in the library. "Sit round waiting for me to turn back into one?"

"That's kinda the idea, yeah." I looked him in the eye. "That's the idea.

He finally looked away, rolling his eyes, and finished the candy bar in silence. He was still taking up the whole doorway, and I didn't really want to find out if he was keeping me in the kitchen, so I kept messing around with the tea. I emptied the strainer into the trash, and washed it and put it in the dish rack, and put the little quilted hat over the teapot to keep it warm. Like if I did it exactly right, when I looked up he'd smile at the space next to my head and say "Xander. Thank you." in the thin voice that meant he was going to let me stay. Going to need me.

When I did look up, he was licking the candy wrapper. Then, boom, he was gone, and I heard the door of the closet by the bathroom squeak.

"Hey!" I scrambled to follow. "You okay? Where...what are you doing?"

He was on his knees, digging in the closet. "...wax...bane...cantation...ah!" He sat back on his heels, his arms full of candles and bottles.

"What are you doing?" I asked again.

"Something to pass the time." He got up with a grunt and a frown, then shot past me back to the living room. "You'll like it!" he shouted over his shoulder, with that same creepy wild-eyed grin that made me wish I had something to protect myself with. Like a tank.

All I could squeeze out of my mouth was a shaky "oh?"

"This," he said, fumbling in the weapons chest, "this one is pretty good shit."

"No. No shit." I grabbed his arm. "There's enough magic flying around town tonight. Besides, magic for fun equals bad, remember? Like you told me? Right before you told me to get out of your sight?"

"You going to tell me to get out of your sight?" He put down whatever he'd grabbed in the chest. "Because you don't seem to want that..."

"N-no..." I still had my hand on him. How many seconds had it been? Why was he looking at me that way? "I just, y'know, magic always... gets us in trouble..." _Okay, time to move your hand. Move your hand. Move!_

"The way you're always hanging about." He turned back to the weapons. "This'll..."

_"No!"_ I pulled on him, he pulled back, and all of a sudden we were on the rug, pressed together from knees to shoulders, me on top with my nose in his ear.

"No?" he said, really softly, turning his head so now we were nose to nose.

_Ice fishing!_, I thought. _Cordelia!_ His skin smelled like the blocks of cedar wood he keeps in his sweater drawer and like a hot shower on a cold morning. _Willow. Luge. Minesweeper. Willow._ I could feel his breath. It smelled like chocolate. _Magic bad, magic bad. Buffy the rat. Buffy. Naked Buffy. Naked Willow._

"No?" he said again, almost growling. Then one of us moved and we weren't even nose to nose any more, but mouth to mouth.

He tasted like chocolate. Like chocolate and smoke and _him_. And there was rippling, again, oh god was there rippling, and I couldn't make a thought or a noise or a breath. Like all my senses died except touch and taste. Like my body died in the places that weren't touching him.

It was a second. A long English-class-before-the-bell-when-you-got-called-on-to-talk-about-_Macbeth_ second, and then I was alone on the floor and he was across the room by the fireplace, bent over, one hand on the mantel, staring at the ground.

I licked my lips, then rubbed them. Breathed. "Hey." I got up slowly. "Giles."

He didn't move.

"You okay there?" _Cordelia_ I thought. _Cordelia. Homecoming dance. Willow. Naked Buffy._ "G-man?"

"...'m sorry..." he said. His voice sounded froggy, like he was waking up. "God... Xander..." He put his free hand to his head. "Oh, god."

"Don't call you that, I know."

"Xander..." He straightened up. "I'm so... I'm so sorry." His eyes met mine for half a second, then slid off to the side. "I, I..."

I swallowed. Didn't look at his mouth. "I made tea."

"Are you... did I hurt you?"

"Sit down, I'll get it. Things, uh... I bet things will be fuzzy. For a while. Sit down," I said again, when he didn't move. "I'll get the tea. Pip pip, cheerio!"

And then, finally, like in the summer, I could go get the tea and turn on the lights and start making stupid jokes, about one every minute and a half, to let him think I wasn't watching, to let him know that this was gonna be another night we'd never, ever talk about.


End file.
